One of the most important factors in gaining muscle and getting stronger, is a solid nutritional plan. In order to build muscle mass, make sure to always provide your body with the correct nutrients essential for gaining muscle. High quality protein, which the body breaks down into amino acids, should be the centerpiece of all your meals. Intense exercise increases demand for amino acids, which support muscle repair and growth.
Another factor is the selection of the right type of weight training. Resistance exercises will help with muscle growth. Whereas aerobic exercises can result in the reduction of weight. For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises, rather than machines or bodyweight exercises. To get a very effective workout, you must stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this. The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergistic muscle development. Stabilizer and synergistic muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift.
The results of weight training can vary from person to person, and will usually depend on your consistency and commitment to your program. You should have the patience and motivation for building a powerful body with a consistent diet and exercise schedule.
Exercise Guidelines for Building Muscle
Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of free weights like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight, and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips.
The more stabilizers you are able to implement, the more muscle fibers will be stimulated. The exercises that work the large muscle groups are called compound (or multi-joint) movements that involve the simultaneous stimulation of many muscle groups. These compound exercises should be the foundation of any weight training program because they stimulate the most amount of muscle in the least amount of time. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift.
Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle groups. You will get fatigued faster and not be able to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true gauge of your strength.
If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have been completed. Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine exercises, bodyweight exercises and multi-jointed free weight exercises. Before increasing the amount of weight being used, you should work on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each movement.
The following are some proven basic exercises to encourage muscle and strength gain unlike any other exercise:
- Bench Press – works the chest, shoulders, triceps
- Overhead Press – shoulders, triceps
- Pull-ups and Barbell Row – back, biceps
- Squats – legs, lower back
- Deadlift – legs, back, shoulders
- Bar Dips – shoulders, chest, arms
